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Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Cinéma Inhabituel for November 16-30

A
Guide to the Rare and Unusual on TCM

By
Ed Garea

We
continue with our look at Natalie Wood as Star of the Month. As we
get into the 60s and beyond, the films of Wood vary wildly in
quality.

November
18: Looking over the night’s offerings, we recommend Splendor
in the Grass (1961), directed by Elia Kazan,
which airs at 8:00 pm, and that old standby, Gypsy (1963),
which is showing at 3:00 am. Splendor in the Grass is
a poignant, coming-of-age story set in Kansas during the Roaring
‘20s. Kazan deals sensitively with the issue of sexual repression
as seen in the young lovers Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood. Warren is
from money, Natalie from the other side of the tracks and that also
plays into their love affair as meddling parents are all too eager to
run the kids’ lives for them. It’s Warren Beatty’s feature film
debut and he comes off quite well, but it’s Wood who dominates. The
film came at a crucial crossroads in her career and answered the
question of whether she could pull off an adult role. Her performance
sealed her status as one of Hollywood’s up-and-coming stars. As
for Gypsy, it’s more of Rosalind Russell’s film,
playing Wood’s mother, but Natalie acquits herself nicely and makes
us believe she is Gypsy Rose Lee.

November
25: Two interesting films are running back to back. First at
10:15 pm is Bob & Carol &
Ted & Alice. Made in 1969 at the height of ‘60s
madness, it’s described by its director, Paul Mazursky, as a satire
on the sexual revolution. Today it seems hopelessly dated, but does
offer insight in a time capsule way into the silliness of the era
when we were all to get in touch with ourselves and our feelings.

Brainstorm,
which follows immediately after at 12:15 am, is a sci-fi story about
two scientists (Christopher Walken and Louise Fletcher) who have come
up with a machine to record and vicariously experience other people's
feelings and perceptions. It sounds better than it plays out, but for
Natalie Wood fans it’s notable as being her last film.

The TCM
Spotlight, “To Tell the Truth,” continues with some hard-hitting
and fascinating documentaries.

However,
as we made clear last issue, documentaries do not so much tell the
truth as they present the point-of-view of the filmmaker. If we were
to take the pronouncement at face value, that documentaries tell the
truth, then we would have to accept that the infamous Nazi
documentary, The Eternal Jew, was telling the truth about
Jews, which, of course, it wasn’t. It was simply made in support of
the Nazis’ anti-Semitic philosophy; a documentary so hateful, so
disgusting, that audiences were revolted, with many leaving the
theater long before it ended. The Nazis used it instead as an
indoctrination film for new SS recruits.

November
16: There something here tonight for everyone. For those who
love surfing, there’s The Endless
Summer (1966) at 8:00 pm. For those who love
basketball there’s Hoop Dreams
(1994) at 9:45 pm. If nostalgia and ‘60s music is
your thing, you might want to check out Woodstock (1970)
at 12:45 am. And if you’re an Elvis fan, there’s Elvis:
That’s The Way It Is (1970). All are excellent
and worth the time.

November
21: Best Bets for the night are Harlan
County, U.S.A. (1976), airing at 8:00 pm, about the
plight of Kentucky coal miners, and Louis Malle’s documentary about
the plight of Minnesota farmers, God’s
Country (1986), at 10:00 pm.

November
23: So much to see tonight, so much to choose from on the
schedule. An excellent documentary on the Apollo missions, For
All Mankind (1989) starts off the evening at 8:00
pm. Following at 9:30 is one of the first of the environmental
documentaries, The Sea Around
Us from Irwin Allen in 1952, based on Rachel
Carson’s best-selling book of the same name. At 10:45 comes the
brilliant Salesman (1969)
from the Maysles Brothers. The film follows four salesmen for the
Mid-American Bible company, mainly focusing on one: Paul Brennan, aka
The Badger. As the TCM essay on the film states, we’ve seen his
like before in such literature as Death of a
Salesman and Glengarry Glen Ross. But here is
the real thing in the flesh; a salesman whose sales and spirits are
down and who is viewed by the other three as something of a jinx.
It’s a fascinating look at a job few would want – selling items
to lower middle class customers for whom such a purchase is a luxury.

At
2:00 am it’s the fascinating Chronicle
of a Summer (1961). It begins with a market
researcher, Marceline, on the street stopping passersby and asking a
simple question, “Are you happy?” She receives answers to this
and a whole lot more as the simple question grows into a host of
related issues. At the end, the filmmakers screen it for those
involved. Directors Edgar Morin, a sociologist, and Jean Rouch, an
ethnographer, conclude that they have failed in their aim to offer a
slice of life because the very act of filming something even off the
cuff ends up transforming it. Morin coined the term “Cinema Verite”
in one of his texts shortly before the film was produced.

At
3:45 am Louis Malle returns with his engaging Place
de la Republique (1974). Filmed in Paris, Malle
questions passerby about their lives, their feelings, and their
interests. The answers are amazing, with some of those interviewed
jumping in to become interviewers themselves.

November
28: Recommendations for this evening begin with the
venerable Grey Gardens (1976)
from the Maysles Brothers at 11:00 pm, followed by Crumb (1994),
a portrait of the pioneering underground comics artist, at 1:00 am.

November
30: Tonight’s picks are Sherman’s
March (1986), about the efforts of filmmaker Ross
Mcelwee to study the effects of General Sherman’s famous march
through the South during the Civil War, at 10:00 pm, and Antonio
Gaudi (1984), director Hiroshi Teshigahara’s
exploration of the works of the famous architect in Barcelona and
Catalonia, Spain.

OUT
OF THE ORDINARY

November
20: Two more films from the former Soviet Union and director
Larisa Shepitko are featured tonight beginning at 2:00 am with the
incisive and finely layered Krylya (Wings).
The 1966 production is centered around Nadezhda Petrovna (Mayya
Bulgakova), a once famous fighter pilot and loyal Stalinist who now
works as a school director in a provincial district who is becoming
increasingly dissatisfied with her life. Does she miss the adulation
and regimentation of military life? Is it the fact that her daughter
has married an older man of whom she does not approve? How about the
women she’s met who are quite content with their lives? Is this the
life she really wanted? The beauty of this film is that her
contemplations take place without words. We see her at her job,
taking on the task of administration, conversing with people who
recognize her, dealing with a young student who looks up to her,
taking the place of a student who refuses to perform a musical number
by putting on the girl’s costume so the others can still go on, and
chewing the fat with a cafe waitress with whom she later
waltzes. Krylya is a film that will stay with you
long after it’s over.

Following
at 3:30 am is one of the best films of the ‘70s, The
Ascent (1977). Shepitko’s last film before her
career ended abruptly in a tragic auto accident. It’s a jarring,
brutal, relentless tale of war. Set in 1942 in Nazi-occupied Belarus,
it concerns a group of refugees led by two soldiers. After a brief
firefight with a German patrol, the refugees head off into the woods.
The soldiers strike out, looking for food to sustain the rest. They
finally find a cabin where inside is a Russian farmer openly working
with the Nazis. They think him a coward but move on. They are later
captured and taken to a Nazi camp in a nearby town for interrogation.
What happens there is shown by the director with sublime delicacy, as
the soldiers are kept in a cell with three others awaiting execution.
This is a relentlessly powerful film that examines the motivations
and thoughts of its protagonists without being obvious. It is a true
Must See.

November
27: At 2:00 am it’s Vittorio DeSica’s sublime and
moving Umberto D. from
1952. For more on this wonderful film see the “Best Bets” section
of the November 23 - 30 TiVo Alert.

PRE-CODE

November
17: In a night dedicated to female con artists there are two
excellent Pre-Codes. First up at 9:45 pm is Blonde
Crazy, from Warner Bros. in 1931. James Cagney stars
as a crooked bellhop who recruits newly-hired chambermaid Joan
Blondell into his schemes to fleece hotel guests. Cagney, of course,
is Cagney, but it’s Blondell’s film and she makes the most of her
role as Anne Roberts, the reluctant partner of bellhop Bert Harris
(Cagney). Blondell and Cagney play off each other beautifully
throughout the film and she proves to be more than a match for his
con games. One of the little tragedies in Hollywood was the misuse of
Blondell by the studio. Warner Bros. was a male-driven studio and
there was little room for female stars. Their biggest female star,
and the only one they pushed for a time, was Barbara Stanwyck. But
Stanwyck had already proved her mettle at other studios, particularly
Columbia, and she wasn’t tied to the exclusive contract that
players like Blondell, Bette Davis, and Ann Dvorak were. Warner’s
treatment of women made Loretta Young take her talents to Fox to get
her much needed push and ruined the budding career of Marian Marsh,
who the studio practically worked to the point of breakdown in such
trifles as Under 18, Alias the Doctor,
and The Road to Singapore. Had Blondell worked for
Paramount or Columbia instead of Warner Bros., she would have been a
much bigger star instead of one always seen in support of the leading
man.

Immediately
following at 11:15 pm is one of director Ernst Lubitsch’s best
– Trouble in Paradise,
from 1932. Miriam Hopkins and Herbert Marshall star as a couple of
grifters who initially target each other and end up as lovers.
Fleeing Venice, where Marshall has just taken a rich Frenchman to the
cleaners by pretending to be a doctor called in to examine his
tonsils, they wind up in Paris and set their sights on rich widow
Madame Colet (Kay Francis). They’re soon in her employ, but as
they’re getting ready for the kill, Marshall finds himself falling
in love with his intended victim. Will he go straight and remain with
Francis or return to Hopkins and his casual life of crime? No one
could pose that dilemma quite like Lubitsch. Trouble in
Paradise is typical of the sophisticated comedies he made
for Paramount in the early ‘30s. Critics called it “the Lubitsch
touch,” which was a name for his distinctive style, one that, in
the case of comedy and farces, treated even the most scandalous
manners and behavior in a breezy, humorous style; his pushing and
redefining the boundaries for what was seen as sexually risqué;
conversations that one does not need to hear in order to understand
what is going on; and a sparkling, sometimes cynical, wit that came
through screenplays of cleverly plotted situations and sexual
gamesmanship, always accompanied by witty, lively dialogue.
Lubitsch’s cinematic fluency was also on display in the film. An
entire scene of seduction/resistance/suspicion/betrayal/conquest is
carried out using nothing more on the screen than a series of clocks.
Sex is never obvious, but implied by shadows cast onto a bed and the
opening and closing of doors, with the accompanying mystery of who is
entering and who is leaving. Even the scene of theft between Hopkins
and Marshall in the beginning of the movie is done in such as way as
to denote foreplay, and is played out once more near the end of the
movie, frequently leaving us not only enchanted, but in awe of the
director’s power to entertain on an adult, sophisticated level.
That’s the real secret of the Lubitsch touch.

PSYCHOTRONICA
AND THE B-HIVE

November
19: It’s an entire evening of Harry Palmer as played by
Michael Caine beginning at 8:00 pm with The
Ipcress File (1965), followed at 10:00 pm
by Funeral in Berlin(1966),
and Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
at midnight. While the first two are entertaining, the third almost
lapses into parody and signaled the end of the series.

At
2:00 am, Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni tries to crash the
counterculture scene, and misses, with Zabriskie
Point (1970). Star Mark Frechette is a college
radical on the run from the police. He steals an airplane and flies
to the desert with secretary Daria Halprin. They end up at Zabriskie
Point in Death Valley where they, along with lots of imagined people,
make love in the dunes. Mark and Daria’s consciousnesses are
expanded and Daria experiences a climatic vision of American
commercialism being blown to bits, all in slow motion to Pink Floyd’s
“Careful With That Axe, Eugene.” Antonioni commissioned Pink
Floyd to score the entire feature, but in the end decided to use only
three tracks. It was filmed during the director’s conversion to
radical leftism, and like most Antonioni films, it makes little
sense. The movie also made little cents at the box office and proved
a big setback to the director’s career. The young, non-actor stars
lived together briefly in the experimental Fort Hill Community, a
Boston commune run by Mel Lyman (that was later determined to be a
cult) before splitting up. Halprin later was briefly married to
Dennis Hopper. Frechette went to jail for robbing a bank in 1973 –
for political reasons he claimed – and died in prison in 1975 in a
supposed weightlifting accident.

At
the wee hour of 4:00 am comes the Monkees in Head (1968).
Released several months after their slickly packaged Help-inspired
TV show was axed by NBC, the film does a 180-degree turnabout from
their prior image with its plotless, anti-establishment,
drug-influenced musical-comedy segments featuring the foursome in
their search for the meaning of life while singing about how phony
the Monkees concept is.(!) While it must have confused the holy hell
out of their young fans, today it stands as a fascinating period
piece from the ‘60s full of Hollywood in-jokes, fringe celebrities,
old movie clips and footage from the Vietnam War. Along the way the
band is seen as dandruff in the hair of a 50-foot Victor Mature (“Big
Victor”), their music is criticized by Frank Zappa, Sonny Liston
knocks out Dave Jones, they meet topless dancer Carol Doda, Annette
Funicello and Teri Garr. Look for co-writers Jack Nicholson and Bob
Rafelson, along with Dennis Hopper. The music is some of the group’s
best and can be heard on Rhino’s re-released soundtrack album.

November
24: A real rarity is on tap tonight as TCM airs The
Life of Riley (1949) at 8:00 pm. An adaptation of
the popular radio series, William Bendix stars as the hard-luck
working stiff Chester A. Riley with Rosemary DeCamp playing his wife
Peg. Jackie Gleason is on hand as neighbor-buddy Gillis. Oddly
enough, Gleason stared as Riley when the show debuted on TV in 1949.
William Bendix was supposed to reprise his role from the radio show
but declined. The television show lasted for only 26 episodes before
the sponsor, Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, pulled the plug to devote more
money to its boxing show. Supposedly, before Gleason took the role, a
pilot was made with Lon Chaney Jr. playing Riley. (What fun that must
have been.) Bendix finally appeared on the small screen as Riley in a
revived version which began in 1953 and ran until 1958.

November
26: When Bowery Boy Chuck Anderson (David Gorcey) is beaten
up during an undercover reporting assignment in the state prison,
Slip, Sach and his other Bowery buddies rush to his aid in Jail
Busters (1955), airing at 10:30 am. The film
bucks the Boys’ trend of farcical slapstick programmers and returns
to the comedy-drama format of the late ‘40s. With Barton MacLane
and Lyle Talbot.

At
2:45 am, it’s Punk
Vacation (1990),
a budget-challenged effort about a gang of punk rockers who terrorize
a small town. It’s followed at 4:15 am by Killer
Party (1986).
A sorority is holding a traditional April Fools' party for a
fraternity in an abandoned frat house where a young man named Allan
was killed 22 years prior. His spirit still haunts the house and
takes over one of the sorority sisters, who begins killing off the
others one by one.